Nature of recombinant human serum amyloid A1 in Escherichia coli and its preferable approach for purification

Serum amyloid A1 (SAA1) is an apolipoprotein which is involved in amyloid A amyloidosis (AA) by forming fibrils. The process of fibrillation is still being explored and holds challenges in recombinant expression and purification of SAA1. This study deals with the preferable approach for the expression and purification of SAA1 which is normally toxic and unstable to express without using any fusion-tag. Complete soluble expression of SAA1 was obtained without the use of additional tag, in terrific broth, supplemented with 3 % ethanol at 30 °C. Soluble fraction of SAA1 was initially treated with salting-out using ammonium sulphate giving 1.5 M salt concentration to avoid SAA1 protein precipitation along with unwanted proteins. The soluble fraction of SAA1 after salting-out was purified by two individual chromatographic approaches: One anion exchange and second reverse phase chromatography. The yield of purified SAA1 was 3 times greater by anion exchange than reverse phase chromatography. MALDI-TOF analysis of purified SAA1 showed 11813 Da for intact protein and proteome analysis revealed greater than 90 % sequence coverage by MASCOT. The subunit interaction showed hexamer form at basic pH which was analyzed by size exclusion chromatography. The fibrillation activity of SAA1 was found to be 10–15 times higher in basic media at 43 °C than 37 °C. Our research demonstrates successful expression and purification of wild-type human recombinant SAA1. The cost-effective radical approach employed for purification of SAA1 is crucial for thorough protein characterization particularly, mechanisms of protein aggregation involved in amyloidosis.